The TVR may soon have to go

2010-04-15 13:06:00

With a baby on the way later this year, my Chimaera is rapidly becoming more and more impractical. I do have the option of keeping the car as a play thing as my wife gas a Honda Civic which will be the family car. However, I fear the Chimaera will get very little use this way. So once again I've been considering replacing it with something more family orientated yet still special. Top of my list so far is the BMW 135i. Whilst being a compact 4 seat coupe, it share the same engine as that found in its big brother, the 335i. The 3 litre, twin turbo, 300bhp power plant has won numerous awards and provides the 135i with performance greater than that of my Chimaera. The car has M Sport spec suspension as standard and has extremely powerful brakes with 6 pot calipers up front. This car ticks all the right boxes for me. With a free flow exhaust and a remap, a reliable 350-370bhp can be achieved and 400 is possible with improvements to the cooling. The car definately has a lot of potential and i feel it is a better package than the 335i. I have consodered the BMW M5 E39 with its 400bhp V8 but almost all of the cars for sale have covered at least 50,000 miles. Whilst the engine is reportedly good for well over 100k, it's all the other components, such as shocks, bushes, electrics etc that may not be as hard wearing. I would ideally prefer a newer car. The Mercedes E55 AMG also took my fancy - with 476bhp and 516lbs ft from its 5.4 litre supercharged V8, what is not to like! However, this was an £80k car only 5 or so years ago - there is a reason why they are now below £20k now. Having researched the reliability of the E55, I feel there could be some huge running costs when parts fail. Common problems seem to be brake pump, power steering and air suspension pump, and supercharger clutch. Fixing worn out parts doesn't necessarily concern me, but these are expensive items and I ideally don't want a car that costs too much to maintain.